Sophia Bush Opens Up About Her Sexuality & Relationship With Soccer Player Ashlyn Harris

One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush can’t stop smiling after opening up publicly about her sexuality for the first time, revealing she’s received so much “safety, respect, and love in the queer community.”

The Chicago P.D. actress spoke candidly in her April cover story for Glamour, where she discussed her relationship with retired pro soccer player Ashlyn Harris and coming to terms with her sexuality.

“I think I’ve always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum,” Bush explained. “Right now I think the word that best defines it is queer. I can’t say it without smiling, actually. And that feels pretty great.”

Bush, who divorced her entrepreneur husband Grant Hughes last August after 13 months of marriage, said she never expected to fall in love with Harris, who was also going through a divorce last year.

“I don’t know how else to say it other than: I didn’t see it until I saw it,” Bush shared. “And I think it’s very easy not to see something that’s been in front of your face for a long time when you’d never looked at it as an option and you had never been looked at as an option. What I saw was a friend with her big, happy life. And now I know she thought the same thing about me.”

Bush also clapped back at critics and gossip blogs, noting that people “weren’t privy to just how much time it took, how many painful conversations were had.”

“What felt like seconds after I started to see what was in front of me, the online rumor mill began to spit in the ugliest ways,” she continued. “There were blatant lies. Violent threats. There were the accusations of being a home-wrecker. The ones who said I’d left my ex because I suddenly realized I wanted to be with women — my partners have known what I’m into for as long as I have (so that’s not it, y’all, sorry!).”